Does Christmas creep really benefit retailers?

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I was at Southpark today, which is October 28th, 2010, and all the stores were putting up their Christmas decorations. In one of the stores, they were blasting Brenda Lee's - "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." Belk was the worst as their halls were already completely decked. I don't know about anybody else, but its kind of annoying seeing Christmas everywhere when it isn't even Halloween yet, the leaves have barely started changing, and its still been getting up to near 90 degrees F in the afternoons. I know the point is to get people in the shopping mood to buy early, but does it really benefit retailers? Is the actual data that shows that stores that put up their Christmas decorations in mid-October do better than ones that wait until late November? From my perspective, it seems that the annoyance of having Christmas in October would more likely cause people to spend less time in the stores until the holiday gets closer, and aren't people going to spend what they are going to spend regardless of when the decorations go up? All thats really happening is Christmas is being so overdone that its actually a relief when the holiday is over.

It seems like this is a relatively new phenomenon. It started after 9/11 (seems the Christmas stuff went up in mid-November that year) and was welcomed then because of the cultural mood of the time, but in years since retailers have slowly been pushing it earlier and earlier until now you see Christmas decorations and Halloween decorations side by side. We should seriously go back to a holiday season that runs from Thanksgiving (or at least mid-November) to Christmas instead of Columbus Day to Christmas.

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I know what you mean....seems like after you've been facing Christmas decorations for like 2 1/2 months the actual day itself flies by in the blink of an eye. It's almost, dare I say, a let down....then of course by New Years stores have out their V-Day decorations.

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With all the major holidays now being celebrated with elaborate decorations and lights, I'm getting "celebration fatigue." As much as I love Christmas, it'd be nice to not have to think about it a few months a year.